Alright, we have a problem.
I'm out of buffer.
It's my fault for being lazy, but hey. We managed to work out a load of crazy awesome ideas, so now we'll post chapters once they've been as thoughoughly processed as we've been doing them lately, so updates will be irregular, but at no cost at quality.
now, reviews.
Heraklinos, wrong about Arceus.
NightmareSyndrom, I want to remind you of something. You know how I managed to perfectly involve so many SMT characters into Fairly English Story, plus their plotlines and personalities? Remember that the only Atlus game I have ever played was Persona 3 and FES? And that I never completed The Answer? Of course I included pokémon we barely know anything about. I've been doing that for ages.
I put in Reshiram and Zekrom because we know nothing about them. It reinforced the point that they were in a future. Of course, we know a lot more about them now.
As for your other complaint, and with Karasu's point, I wrote the chapter with Jirachi speaking English. I then went over all its lines because I want the big reveal to be in due time, since you are not yet ready for it.
Just so you know, I watch Criminal Minds while babysitting toddlers. I watched Death Note with my ten-year-old little brother. If I say someone's not ready for it, I have a good reason to say so.
Karasu, as for your other question, I have been foreshadowing this since chapter 15. This is probably the most brilliant plotline I have done since Minatos.
WWDW, of course he was enjoying himself. Who wouldn't?
-}+{-
"So, now that you have become Emperor, what have you learned?" Cyrus asked Charles as they watched C.C. and Marianne relax by the riverside.
"Everyone is trapped, my brother." Emperor Charles answered. "The Nation of Britannia is still the same."
"You mean humans are still the same." Cyrus corrected.
"You may be right." Charles admitted.
"Charles." Cyrus said. "You haven't forgotten our pact, have you?"
"I remember." Charles nodded. "Bring down the Gods and destroy the world's laws."
Cyrus nodded. "Tell me brother." he asked the other. "Can you see it?"
"Not today." Charles replied with a smile, seeing his consort throw a strawberry cheesecake at the green-haired witch. "Today, I will allow myself a moment of weakness where I may fool myself that all is right with the world."
"That is not good, brother." Cyrus warned, stepping in front of the king. "You must not grow weak."
Lelouch led Shirley and Jeremiah to Ashford and Cynthia. "I see you've brought a friend." Lelouch told his brother.
"I see you've brought two." Red replied, glaring at Jeremiah and Shirley. "What happened?"
"The Deoxys got me." Shirley told him before Lelouch could lie. "If it wasn't for Lulu, that… thing would be controlling me now, instead of the other way around."
"Y-you can beat the Deoxys?" Cynthia asked Lelouch in shock.
"My Geass can make people's brains inside a Deoxys take over the host." Lelouch explained. "But it wasn't easy. And while I'm at it, did either of you pass out on the way here?" he added. "Specifically, during the five hours between one in the morning and six in the morning?"
"I was asleep." Ash shrugged.
"So was I." Cynthia added. "What's that got to do with anything?"
"Nothing." Lelouch obviously lied. "I was just checking that you were both rested for today's battle."
"You mean tomorrow's battle." Ashford corrected. "You're a day early."
Lelouch looked confused for a moment, then checked his pokénav. "So I am." He admitted with surprise. "Sorry, I had a long dream."
Red scowled. "What is it?" Lelouch asked.
"Cyrus is here." The Grandmaster told his brother. "I can feel it."
"Good." Lelouch said with a grin. "Because I know how to kill an immortal man."
Suzaku rolled over on the steel floor. "Dammit…" he growled, forcing himself to his feet while rubbing his aching head. "What the hell..?" he asked, brushing his non-existent moustache with his finger. 'Blood?' he realised, looking at the smear on his finger.
He stepped forward into the pool of blood and covered his mouth as he gagged at the site of the two corpses.
The mangled, empty sack of flesh resembling his schoolmate and the carnage that was a deoxys.
Before he let the rage and disgust take over, however, he reached for a shelf and pulled out a cigarette box and began twirling one of the white sticks between his fingers as he crouched amongst the woman's body. "There is only one external wound." Suzaku stated, as if describing the scene to another. "The victim's clothing has been removed, but has been left in a pile over there, yet is missing the dress.
"The corpse is empty." Suzaku continued, feeling the body with his gloved fingers. "All muscle, fat, organs and bone are missing, yet the only non-superficial wound is from the…" Suzaku gulped. "Reproductive area."
He looked at the mangled corpse of the deoxys and thought back on what Lelouch was telling Shirley. "The deoxys are known to take human flesh and incorporate it into their own DNA to prolong their lifespan and increase their intelligence. It is possible that the victim was already consumed by the deoxys when I confronted the suspect." Suzaku scowled. "That would explain his physical outburst and the deoxys attacking me rather than its ordered target…"
Suzaku scowled. "It's my fault… he could have saved her…"
You do not know that he didn't
Suzaku hesitated, but then smiled bitterly. "Thanks Lancelot." He said, putting the cigarette to his mouth and lighting it with blue flame. He coughed up the fumes, however, , and felt a bit nauseous, so he then pressed the cigarette into his palm. "Come on." He told his partner, pocketing the extinguished stub as he brushed the hole in his glove with his thumb. "Let's see what else we can find."
And so, Lelouch had time on his hands and a ruin to attack.
The question was, however, to attack the ruins before unit Zero arrived from Zero City, or wait until the United States Alliance was formed.
Lelouch decided on waiting. He could be patient.
So while everyone else worked on preparing camp, Lelouch called C.C. and got her to fill him in on what he had missed.
_\_ "The only important change from your scenario is that they chose the United Federation of Nations for a name." _\_ C.C. told him as she concluded her report. _\_ "The Black Knights are now an official army." _\_
"That's good." Lelouch told C.C. "We're stationed outside the Ruins of Alph right now, ready to storm the base tomorrow."
_\_ "Cyrus is there." _\_ C.C. warned.
"You aren't the first to warn me." Lelouch replied with a smirk. "I know what I'm doing."
_\_ "Remember, I need you alive." _\_
Lelouch smirked. "Don't worry. I know of two ways to kill a Code."
_\_ "Hm?" _\_ C.C. asked, managing to keep her composure. _\_ "How?" _\_
"Is it possible I know something you don't, immortal witch?" Lelouch asked slyly. "Well, the method I'm not going to use on Cyrus involves advancing beyond the Code."
Lelouch could almost hear her scowl. _\_ "Is there a stage above a Code?" _\_ she asked.
The boy thought for a moment. "What would you do to me if I ordered Dominos instead of Pizza Hut?"
The witch didn't reply, so Lelouch explained what he knew. "Charles has the Code, and Cyrus, who gave him the Geass, is also a Code." Lelouch stated. "You gave Ashford the Geass, and now he's a Code. I have also reached the incubation stage to advance into the Code. You don't die by transferring the Code."
"I can deactivate my Geass at will." He told her. "I've advanced far further than Mao, and unlike you, I understand the purpose of the Geass and the Code. Those who fail are erased. Those that succeed evolve. Either way, we die." Lelouch felt his Geass beginning to rise, so he calmed himself. "Just promise me that you won't fail like others have."
_\_ "Jiro told you a lot of things." _\_ C.C. confirmed. It wasn't a question. _\_ "Do you know where he is?" _\_
Lelouch closed his eyes. "He returned to the comet." he lied. "He won't be returning."
_\_ "How do you know all this?" _\_
"Cera." Lelouch said. "Just… trust me."
C.C. hesitated, then sighed. _\_ "You have a lot more to explain Lelouch." _\_ She conceded.
"I will." He promised. "Just wait until after tomorrow's battle."
Lelouch then hung up and shoved his pokénav into his pocket before returning to the camp.
Charles wept.
To think his own sons could betray him this far.
He rose to his feet.
"Bring me those madmen from Area Eleven." The Emperor ordered. "Bring the boy who captured them too."
Tears could wait.
Now it was time for vengeance.
Jeremiah stood outside as a guard as the rest of the group was gathered in a hollowed-out cave made by Cynthia's spiritomb's Secret Power, and was filled with an alarming number of stuffed pokémon dolls.
'Not exactly the best place for a council of war.' Lelouch sighed to himself. "Alright, Ashford, what is Cynthia's status?" he asked, turning to the blonde woman. "Are you a hostage or an ally?"
"I'm a scientist." Cynthia replied. "I only want answers, and apparently you have them."
"She joined the Knights of the Round for the tomb-raiding privileges." Ash explained. "Since we'll actually give her answers considering the Geass, she joined our side."
"Alright then." Lelouch nodded. "Jeremiah joined us out of loyalty to Marianne, and Shirley's here because… well…"
"Lulu captured me." Shirley sighed, hands between her legs. "I'm his pokémon now. It's a weird feeling, actually." She added. "I know I'm a slave, yet I don't mind…"
An awkward silence followed this.
Cynthia decided to break it.
"So, how does one obtain a Geass?" she asked anyone in particular.
"By kissing a Code." Lelouch sighed.
"Does this kiss have to be consensual?" Cynthia asked.
"Well, Ash stole his Geass, so I doubt it." Lelouch shrugged. "But I don't think the Geass can be forced onto someone who doesn't want it."
"And Red is a Code right now?" Cynthia asked.
Ash sighed. "Yeah, why—?"
He was interrupted by a blonde scientist stealing a Geass from him. For science.
"It really doesn't have to be that long." Lelouch sighed after several seconds.
"Just making sure." Cynthia breathed, pulling away after a minute. "How do I turn it on?"
"It should be activated already." Lelouch answered with furrowed eyebrows. "Did you feel a rush of psychic energy connecting your minds while you were kissing?" he asked professionally while the other two were somewhat flabbergasted.
"No." Cynthia sighed, scratching the back of her head under her hair. "Was there supposed to be?"
"Either that or he's just not that good a kisser, contrary to all other evidence." Lelouch sighed. "If you want a Geass, you'd be best off waiting for C.C. to arrive then. Apparently transfer of the Geass varies from Code to Code, and Ash hasn't figured his method out yet."
"Oh, that's good." Ash smiled. "So no worry about Geass becoming the newest STD. My afterlife doesn't suck so bad."
"Defiance comes from the balls Ash." Lelouch pointed out.
The younger boy just stared at his brother, before standing up and storming out of the Secret Base. "Jeremiah!" he shouted. "I'm on watch now!"
"Hey, what about your pokémon?" Cynthia asked Cynthia as Dunsparce entered the base. "Can you take a pokéball into the pokéball with you?"
"Dunno." Shirley replied. "I can only take one thing at a time, so I obviously haven't tried."
"Did you bring her pokémon?" Cynthia asked Lelouch, who handed the balls over. "Right, lend me her pokéball now."
"What, what?" Shirley asked in shock.
"For science." Cynthia explained with an evil glint.
"Pokéballs cannot enter pokéballs." Cynthia explained, coming out from behind the curtain with a blushing Shirley a few minutes later. "Also, the dress comes off inside the pokéball."
"That must be aggravating for you miss." Jeremiah told Shirley with Sympathy. "I'm only part-pokémon, so I cannot be captured inside a pokéball."
Cynthia slammed her fist into her palm. "Deoxys can manipulate their DNA at will!" she exclaimed, before turning to Shirley. "Can you use Transform?"
"Eeeh?"
"Shirley's not your lab-rat." Lelouch snapped, glaring at Cynthia. "Don't treat her like some freak."
"Lulu…"
-^- Deoxys, the DNA pokémon. An alien virus that fell to earth on a meteor underwent a DNA mutation to become this Pokémon. It requires human DNA in order to stabilize its own. It is highly intelligent and wields psychokinetic powers. This Pokémon shoots lasers from the crystalline organ on its chest. The crystalline organ on this Pokémon's chest appears to be its brain. -^-
"Turn that off." Lelouch snapped at his brother who had just snuck back inside.
"Funny." Cynthia commented as Ashford snapped his pokédex shut. "I didn't see any crystalline organ on her chest…"
"THAT'S IT!" Lelouch shouted, rising to his feet and storming out of the Secret Base.
"Lulu!" Shirley shouted after him.
"Eh, it's fine." Ash shrugged, vaulting onto a sofa. "The stress is bound to get to him sooner or later."
Ashford was wrong.
Lelouch wasn't stressed.
He was thinking.
He knew how to kill Cyrus. If the plan went well, he could keep the ruins undamaged so he could figure out the rest of the riddles Vengeance and Jiro had told him, but if the Black Knights attacked in full force then most of this damage would be unusable.
'But if I advance myself into a Code and go in alone, then I will not be able to kill Cyrus.' Lelouch sighed. 'And if we attack with the few we have now, then I'll certainly get killed in the assault.'
Lelouch could only think of one way to attain victory, but it wasn't fair.
He had promised himself not to let his soul get in the way of his goals anymore, but still…
"Hey, Lulu."
Lelouch glanced over his shoulder to see Shirley walk out of the Secret Base to sit next to him. "Hey." He told her. "How're you feeling?"
"Good, I guess." Shirley sighed. "I can't believe it was only the day before yesterday when everything was all right and well with the world, and now…"
Lelouch lowered his head. "About what they were saying back in there…" Shirley continued. "It's fine, really, I don't mind it." She smiled, but he could tell it was false. "I'm just glad to be alive."
'I can't ask this of her.' Lelouch glared to himself. 'She deserves more than this.'
"Lulu." Shirley sighed. "I want you to use me."
The young man stopped dead, his head slowly turning to the deoxys who thought she was a girl. "I can feel this body's strength." Shirley explained. "I know you can use it, and I want you to use it. I loved you before Lulu, and I still do, but…"
She turned to face him. "You won't let me help you." She told him. "I know I haven't been like this long, but you didn't let me fight with you in Goldenrod. You're planning to attack these ruins without using me, and it hurts." She sobbed. "I know I'm just being petty, and it's just the deoxys talking but… when you don't use me to fight… it breaks my heart Lulu!"
"I…" Lelouch managed, before looking down. "I'm sorry…"
Shirley smiled. "It's different when you're a pokémon." She told Lelouch. "It's like… using Dive."
Lelouch gave her a look of surprise, confusion, and interest, gesturing for the girl to elaborate. "I mean, you know when you're in the bubble with your pokémon, but you can still feel the water around you." Shirley explained. "But it's a whole different world. You look at things differently, and you feel differently too. I want to fight." She added, clenching a dark skinned fist. "I'm not angry, I don't want to kill, I've just got this desire to prove myself- both to me and the world." She blushed. "I don't want to let you down. I want to please you, to make you proud of me. I'm not a mindless slave, but I feel that as long as I'm by your side and I do what you say, then I'll be happy." She leant her head onto his shoulder. "Is that wrong Lulu?"
Lelouch smiled to himself. She'd just described that feeling at the back of his head that he'd felt in jirachi's world.
The feeling of being a pokémon…
"No." he told her, opening his hand and looking at his palm. "No, I completely understand what you mean." He added, remembering the power he once wielded like it was nothing.
And darkness formed in a claw around Shirley's hand.
"I-I'm sorry!" Shirley gasped, covering her mouth and dispelling the darkness. "I- I didn't mean to-"
Lelouch flipped over onto his knees and held the hand. "Do that again." He told her.
"Eh?" she asked. "I- I don't know how…"
"From what we've figured out, Deoxys can't learn either Night Slash or Shadow Claw…" Lelouch realised. 'But I could… did she mimic one of my moves?'
'No, I haven't advanced to that stage yet, and even so Deoxys can't learn Mimic.' Lelouch realised. 'Did I just control her body with my brainwaves?'
"Shirley." Lelouch told her, grabbing hold of her head on both sides. "I need you to hold still and try to empty your mind."
"O-okay..?" she replied, closing her eyes.
Lelouch took a deep breath, then slowly moved his face into hers.
They bumped foreheads.
It hurt Lelouch. Shirley was just disappointed.
"Right, of course that was a stupid idea…" Lelouch sighed, getting to his feet. "Never mind." He laughed, patting Shirley on the head. "It wasn't going to—"
'|''||'''|||'|'|'||'||'''|||'|'|''||||||
'|'|'|||'||'|''''||''''|'|||'|''''|''|||'|||''||''|''''''||'|''''||''''|'|||'''''|||'''''||''|'|'||'|||''||'|''|'||'|||''||''|||''||||||
'|''||'''|'|'|'|'|''||'''|'|'|'|''|''''|
Lelouch opened Shirley's eyes.
They looked down at themselves- Lelouch was wrapped in black, red and blue organic armour.
And their thoughts were one.
They raised an arm, summoning a Shadow Ball as the fingers split into a maelstrom of tentacles around Lelouch's human hand.
'|'|'|'''||'|''''||'|''|'|||''||''|''''''||'|''|'|||''||''|''''''||'|||''||''|'|'|||'||| they said.
They looked towards the ruins.
They smiled.
They vanished.
Spikes grew out of the back of their head and from their shoulders as their speed grew exponentially. They became a blur, moving too fast for their targets to react as they rushed down through the tunnel leading to the central ruins.
Bursting through another bulwark like it was a paper screen, they leapt high into the air. Any and all counterattacks mounted by the unprepared troops inside the ruins went wide.
Soaring above their heads, Lelouch took advantage of their bird's-eye view of the area.
It was a massive chamber build into the cavern, with ancient buildings cut right into the rock. Thick stone pillars stretched from the ground to the roof of the cavern, seemingly carved from stalagmites. Lelouch latched onto one with a flick of Shirely's tentacled armor and looked down at the scene.
A central path ran straight to the most important looking building, a regal ruin with concrete and stainless steel extensions, which sat at the centre of the complex.
That was where their target waited.
Lelouch ignored the mounting excitement he felt coming from the deoxys, while Shirley blamed the building sensation inside of her on nerves.
Lelouch cast his gaze around the rest of the ruins, getting a good look at the shape of the board and the pawns, rooks and knights scrambling to get them.
He had never played a game quite like this before, where the king and the queen were one and the same. Where, when the king moved, the queen moved in that same step.
It reminded him of a proverb… Who was it that said, 'If the king does not move, the rest will not follow'?
Oh, that's right. He did.
A torrent of elemental attacks zeroed in on their position, but Lelouch had predicted it. He could feel them through Shirley, the shapes of the defending pokemon's minds.
Lelouch ordered Shirley to use Agility.
They vanished.
They moved too fast to be seen, too fast to even see themselves. Everything was a blur, but Lelouch used thought, the subtle markings of his opponent's minds to construct the board in his minds eye.
He didn't need sight here. It had been a long, long time since Lelouch needed to see the board to win a game of chess.
They lightly touched down among a crowd of scientists. A moment later, they dashed away, leaving only bloody gore behind.
King captures Pawn.
There was a cacophony of thought around him, and the deoxys reveled in their terror, growing drunk off their blood. To Lelouch, however, they were merely indicative of where the pieces lay. It was like being back at Shinjuku that fateful day, astounding ally and enemy alike with his tactics when all he had done was take advantage of Brittania's naïve use of IFF.
It was such a simple thing to reach out to the song of thoughts around him and silence the voices, one by one, with a flick of a tentacle or bolt of psychic energy.
Lelouch tracked where a soldier was firing, and they reached out to him. He fell to the ground, blindly scrambling for his severed neck, gargling bloody foam.
King captures Pawn.
They appeared before the soldier's comrades. The lithe, sharp whips around Lelouch's limbs lashed out at their command, tearing through the human guards and their pokémon alike.
King captures Rook.
They felt the presence behind them, and turned.
Another deoxys.
They raised a hand, launching a wave of spiralling purple energy at it- a Psycho Boost.
The simulacrum of the monster didn't stand a chance, bursting into bloody paste and sickly fluid before it could respond.
King captures Knight.
A child appeared beside them, the girl's eye flaring red. They stumbled, their world turning upside down. Lelouch chided himself for overlooking the fact that he would still be vulnerable to Geass, and ordered a Swift.
They flailed their limbs, launching a hundred shining star projectiles at the Geass-bearing child.
A scientist knocked the girl out of the way and was lacerated by the attack in her place.
Pawn moves to guard Bishop, King captures Pawn.
Unfortunately for the pawn, the shove had surprised the girl, making her inadvertently cancel her Geass. She looked back in shock at the dead scientist, then back the unified monster.
Her eye flared, a second too late. They took a step beyond her as sharp whips buzzed through the air.
There was a burst of blood as they passed, the girl fell to pieces behind them.
King captures Bishop, and Lelouch moved onto the next.
Shirley, however, cowered in the back of the combined mind.
She could feel Deoxys's bloodlust and delight at the carnage
She felt Lelouch's apathy to the slaughter. He didn't care about these soldiers, about these scientists, about these children; they were only in his way. Only pieces to knock over as he moved towards his checkmate.
The monster's Fire and her master's Ice were swirling around her in a maelstrom of rage.
And it was consuming her.
She needed it to end. She was at her threshold, she couldn't accept much more.
A shudder of fear and an ominous presence ran through her, and Lelouch realised it was stemming from the deoxys.
They looked up at the stern-faced man standing atop a shadowy behemoth.
The master of the ruins had come to greet them, atop Giratina, legendary beast of the void. Lelouch sneered at the sight, of his opponent posturing himself as a king of darkness and nihilism.
Shirley recoiled in horror. The deoxys in her broke into panic, and all she could see was a nightmare, a black spot in her mind and the world where a horrible king stood, its glare burning into her mind.
'|''''||'||||''|'|||''|''|||'|'|'|||''|| Lelouch growled as Shirley screamed.
The tentacles began to tear away from the boy. '|''|||'O!" he shouted, his voice emerging from the bizarre sounds. "Not ye'|||'|''''|''''''|'|''||'||'|''''||'|''|'|||''|''||'||''ey! AAARRGGHH!"
The armour peeled back and flopped onto the floor like a discarded rubber glove. "Lulu…" it gasped, reforming into Shirley. "Not this… please…"
"So that was your plan to kill me." Cyrus stated, activating his Geass and glaring at Lelouch. "How childlike." He sneered.
C.C. scowled. "That fool." She muttered, standing to her feet. "He actually believes he can defeat Cyrus? Even ignoring his Code, that man is…"
She walked over to the phone and called Silver. "Zero has initiated combat with the enemy alone." She told Silver. "We need to save that idiot now."
Jeremiah, Cynthia and Red knew something was up as soon as Lelouch and Shirley merged. Grabbing their weapons and their pokémon, they rushed at full speed to the ruins to fight.
Scattered soldiers turned to attack, and were cut down in short order. Most, however, had fled to regroup, and many of the wider corridors through the winding buildings and chambers had been collapsed by Lelouch's rampage, further restricting the enemy's movement. With a quick Hyperbeam from Red's aerodactyl, several more passages followed suit, burying the charging troops under the rubble.
The two men lead the charge, both of them being immune to the Geass and capable of resisting the Geass users being bred in the ruins. Red's aerodactyl soared above them, crashing into buildings to bury soldiers and Geass users alike under Rock Slides, while quick bolts of electricity from Jeremiah and Pika mopped up any survivors.
Cynthia, to make up for being less able to fight in comparison, searched the ruins for Lelouch's and Shirley's aura. Her garchomp rushed towards approaching enemies, using Earthquake to collapse their shelters around them, and its talons to do the rest. "This way!" she decided, leading the team down one particular corridor.
It lead to a wide chamber, one covered in blood and flesh.
"He- he's gone…"
A lone girl knelt naked in the centre, sobbing with several spikes shooting out her back, curving to pin their victims to the walls and ceiling. "I'm sorry…" she choked. "I… I lost control for a second, and…"
Cynthia stepped forward and knelt in the red puddle, her black clothes soaking up the organic fluids as she held the crying girl.
It was only Lelouch and Cyrus in this empty world.
It was a dead world- a desert. The ground was cracked from the lack of rain, and the sun burnt brightly in a scorched sky. The few trees in the distance were dead and crumbling. A lone tumble weed crawled across the plains in search of water that wasn't there.
'A world after doomsday.' Lelouch thought to himself. 'How fitting.'
"Your plan was a foolish one my nephew." Cyrus stated as he began to pace around Lelouch. "By combining with that poor girl, you hoped that you could acquire sufficient power to erase one such as I?"
"No, actually." Lelouch replied with a sneer. "That was simply an experiment that went amazingly right for once." Lelouch drew two of Tuckers blades from behind his back and readied himself. "This is how I shall kill you."
Cyrus tightened his eyebrows. "Foolish mortal." He sighed as he circled his nephew. "Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, Creeps in this petty pace from day to day To the last syllable of recorded time, And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player That struts and frets his hour upon the stage And then is heard no more: it is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing."
Lelouch chuckled, and began walking around his uncle. "But then I sigh, and, with a piece of scripture, Tell them that God bids us do good for evil:" he replied. "And thus I clothe my naked villainy With odd old ends, stol'n out of holy writ; And seem a saint, when most I play the devil."
"Villain, thou know'st no law of God nor man;" Cyrus barked. "No beast so fierce but knows some touch of pity."
"What see'st thou else In the dark backward and abysm of time?" Lelouch asked with a smirk. 'We're not even quoting Shakespeare in context anymore.'
"'||'||'|'||'|''|'|||''||'|||''||'||'|''|'||'|||''||''|||'||'|||''||'||||" Cyrus replied.
Lelouch's eyes widened in shock, reaching down for the pokéballs that weren't there. "There are no pokémon in this realm." Cyrus explained, holding out his arm as two streams of white circled into his open palm, forming into a long, wide blade in his hand. "You are trapped here in my world."
Lelouch grinned. "I knew it." He taunted, twirling a green blade in his hand before stabbing it into the ground. "I don't even need a blade to kill you here."
Cyrus stared at Lelouch, before holding out his hand. "You shall die here, at the end of the world."
"Tell me, Uncle." Lelouch asked as the scorched sky began to reflect images of his life, flickering a slideshow of his own life. "What made you give up on your own heart?"
The images stopped on a scene Lelouch did not recognise. 'Just as planned.' He thought to himself as they were pulled away from the wasteland.
"Mother?" Cyrus asked a grieving woman with short blue hair, sobbing by a bloodstained bedside. "I'm here mother…"
"Thank you Cyrus." The woman replied, smiling through her tears. "But… I want to be with your father right now…"
"Father is dead mother." Cyrus told his mother, rushing over and embracing her. "We cannot visit him."
"Yes we can…" the woman sobbed, as if realising a new conclusion. "Together…"
The vision stopped. "You looked so young then." Lelouch commented. "Just like your name. Cyrus." Lelouch smiled. "Biblical. Persian for 'Far sighted, young', yet also Greek for 'Lord'. Famous for the Persian king Cyrus the Great, who conquered Babylon and freed the Jews, allowing them to return to Israel."
"Lelouch." Cyrus replied. "A play on words for the French word 'Louche', meaning 'Of questionable morality, decadent'." He glared at his nephew. "You own mother named you 'The Suspicious One'."
"She obviously knew me better than your mother knew you." Lelouch replied with a smile. "Yet she named your brother Charles, meaning 'Man', or 'Army, strong'. A Germanic name from your mother's homeland. He was the one named for your father."
"My son…" a dying man told Cyrus with uncontrollable Geass in both eyes. "Please, end this life of mine."
"I cannot do that my king." Cyrus replied with dead eyes. "One cannot kill the dead."
Charles the third collapsed onto his bed, the light fading from his eyes as his breathing stopped. He took another sharp breath, his Geass dragging him back from the sweet embrace of death with only a moments peace from his tortured existence. "Do you not love even your own father..?" the king pleaded. "Have I not raised you well?"
"You were a wonderful father, my king." Cyrus replied with gaunt eyes. "I do not blame you, not hold any shame to me. However, there is one reason that I cannot grant your desire."
"You have the Code." Charles the third pleaded. "You can end my pain!"
Cyrus knelt on the floor next to the bed. "My king, no, father…" ho told the dying king. "All lives were equal… to you… and so, you were revived… but you've noticed by now, haven't you?" Cyrus asked his father, pausing as the king died and was revived again. "The only thing all humans are equal in… is death."
"Not us…" Charles the Third groaned. "We don't deserve the care of the Reaper."
Cyrus leaned closer to his father. "Can you see it?" The Code asked his father, his Geass flaring up as he pointed to his own forehead. "The scenery of Doomsday…"
"So it was your mother's death." Lelouch said. "Amazing that such a trivial matter could break you so much."
"If I recall, everything you have done so far was to avenge your mother." Cyrus replied. "The mother I killed."
"You're wrong." Lelouch said as the images flashed across the canvass of clouds. "I am a matricide, just like yourself."
Cyrus glared. "I did not kill my mother." He replied, the images stopping. "Nor did you."
"Marianne survived." Lelouch smiled. "Just like your father, she only discovered the true nature of her Geass upon her death. You only managed to destroy her body." He continued. "I finished the job."
"MOTHER!"
The young Lelouch watched helplessly as his mother fell atop his sister Nunnally in a pool of blood. He stopped struggling against the guards holding him back, over come with despair as Nunnally screamed.
"Tell me, boy." Cyrus told Lelouch, a smoking gun in his hand. "Can you see it? The scenery at doomsday?"
Lelouch stared in horror at the man- the monster who just murdered his mother and ruined his sisters legs as he was stolen into a dead world of despair.
And the young girl watching the scene was taken over by a heartless woman, and ran, abandoning her children to the hell she refused to save them from.
"You don't like pokémon, do you?" Lelouch asked Cyrus.
"Weapons are only as such." Cyrus replied. "As with all things, they serve their role in that world."
"But not here." Lelouch noted with a smile. "In this world, there is nothing but you and me. A dead world where you are the only thing that matters. Yet, you can only enter this world within your soul by bringing someone from the outside into your heart."
Lelouch laughed as the scenes began to move through the sky again. "The Geass hates men." He said. "You desire a world where you are alone and the only thing, yet it means nothing if there isn't someone else to see it!"
Cyrus raised a hand at Lelouch. "Enough." He ordered the boy. "I am god here."
"You are dead." The Emperor sighed.
"Eh?" Lelouch gasped.
"You have been dead from the moment you were born." The emperor explained. "Who gave you those clothes you wear? Your home? Your food? Even your life! I GAVE THEM ALL TO YOU! YOU HAVE NOT LIVED FOR A SINGLE MOMENT! HOW FOOLISH CAN YOU BE?"
The emperor stood up from his throne and Lelouch fell back, squealing in fear. "Lelouch." The emperor glared. "A dead man has no rights. You will go to Japan with Nunnally. A prince and a princess should make good bargaining chips."
"I'm sure that a god could crush a mortal." Lelouch told Cyrus. "Is that truly all you can do? Show me memories?"
"What has been, what happened elsewhere, what could be." Cyrus replied. "This is nothing."
"Oh, I thought you're Japanese!" a bloodstained Euphie apologised to Zero as she loaded her gun. "Say, Zero, would you like to join me build the Special Administrative Zone of Japan..." she tilted her head in confusion. "Um… Japan..?"
"I would like to, Euphie." Zero told her honestly as he raised a gun. "Together."
He fired a bullet into her chest.
'Goodbye, Euphie.' Lelouch thought as the princess fell to the ground. 'You were the first woman I ever loved.'
Lelouch fell backwards. "What… what is…?"
"You have been fortunate, Lelouch." Cyrus told him. "You have been saved by others so many times, you do not even know it yourself. Such arrogance. You think you know the extent of your crimes? You think you have accepted that you have blood on your hands?"
"You know nothing, little child." Cyrus told Lelouch.
Red twisted around behind him in the bloodstained chamber, and his pikachu on his shoulder suddenly darted to attention. "Is something wrong?" Jeremiah asked him.
"Can you see it?" the younger boy asked. Pika's cheeks sparked with electricity as it began to nervously growl.
"See what?" Jeremiah asked, turning around to look better.
"Just... in the corner of my eye..." Ash whispered, slowly tracking his head around the room as he tapped the side of his head, following his own gaze with his finger. "It's there... I know it's there..."
Cynthia turned to look at Red. "What is it?" she asked, not leaving Shirley alone. Her garchomp edged a little closer to her, the fearless dragon suddenly becoming apprehensive.
"I don't know..." he replied. "Because I just miss it... your eyes pass over it... because I really, really, really do not want to see it..."
"See what?" Jeremiah asked, twisting his head around and expanding his electrical field to search. "What are we looking for?"
At the back of his mind, Rotom went silent.
"T-the father..." Shirley sobbed as her arm mutated into a writhing mass of tentacles. "A-and the s-son... and the phantom... of all pokémon..."
-}+{-
Next chapter, shit shall become real.
Hey, I wonder what Nunnally's doing right now?
Varanus: Wow, Shirley didn't take that well. Well, that's the difference between knowing you have a capacity to kill and actually understanding it. And I bet you all thought she was in the clear!
So, yeah. Like I said, irregular updates from now on.